Which band would travel 100 miles just to practise? Angela Hutchinson spoke with DJ Quiq of SNL to find out.

SNL

SNL are a young band of rappers whose first CD, an intriguing EP 'Urban Revolution' is out now. Consisting of 22 year old DJ Quick (aka Luke Hodge), Dai Hankey (23), Luke Bush (19) and Dave Law (17), SNL have overcome distinct geographic problems. "We are quite spread out," says Luke with classic understatement. "I'm originally from Cardiff but I'm now in Plymouth studying at university, while Dai Hankey the rapper is in Cardiff then the two other rappers, Luke Bush and Dave Law, are in Plymouth too. My wife and I met them at the youth group that we work at; they joined the band in January and started rapping. They also wrote a track on the EP 'Tears'. We also have a session drummer Stu Hardisty in Cardiff, so practising can be fun as we normally have to play the music down a phone line!"

With his friend Dai, the fledgling group began putting tracks together and looking for a chance to gig. It came with the Cardiff youth-based organisation Going Public. "We were asked to DJ. They asked us if we knew any bands. We put two and two together and convinced them that we would be good, and although they had never heard us they said yes, and we suddenly found ourselves on stage in front of lots of people."

Gradually the SNL's reputation grew. "We'd been doing the SNL thing for about two years and the people who heard us were asking for hard copies. We had stuff hanging around on the computer and bits on tape that we'd recorded in the front room, so we decided to take things a little more seriously. I knew Edi and Lucy Britten from Psalmistry so through that connection we got together and were asked to go to Redland Studios in Bristol to work with Tony Silcock. It was quite a shock to be in the studio with proper equipment and not just a mike and computer, but we are really pleased with the finished product - it sounds good.

Now we have the EP out we have had to take things a lot more seriously and that has meant getting a manager, Jeremy Jarvis, one of Dai's friends in Leeds. He reminds us of the important things, where we need to be and when, because we quite often forget. We are in the future looking into doing more festivals and also getting a wider audience as a lot of our friends are excited about us having a CD out and that's meant many of them coming into a church where they wouldn't have before. But SNL has definitely been a calling from God. As I say to Dai and the boys, 'What are we doing up on stage when there are much more talented and gifted people than ourselves?' Although everything seems to fit together and we land on our feet with stuff. We all feel really blessed by this to be part of God's plan in such an up front way, so we have to honour that the best we can."